Oak  Street 
UNCLASSIFIED 


«y 


NEW  SERIES 


SEPTEMBER,  1912 


Vol.  I.    No.  1 


SUPPLEMENT  TO 

PEABODY  COLLEGE  BULLETIN 

George  Peabody  College 
for  Teachers 


UNIVERSITY  OP 


ITS   FUNCTION 


PUBLISHED     BY    GEORGE    PEABODY    COLLEGE    FOR    TEACHERS 

JANUARY,  APRIL,  JUNE,  SEPTEMBER 

NASHVILLE,  TENN. 

Application  for   Entry  as  Second-Class  Matter  at  the  Postoffice  at  Nashville,  Tenn.,  Pending 


George  Peabody  College 
for  Teachers 


ITS  FUNCTION 


September,  1912 


NASHVILLE,  TENN. 
Published  by  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachi 

1312 


THE  TRUSTEES 

OF 

GEORGE  PEABODY  COLLEGE  FOR  TEACHERS 


PRESIDENT 

JUDGE  EDWARD  T.  SANFORD,  Knoxville,  Tenn. 

VICE-PRESIDENT 

PROF.  J.  B.  ASWELL,  Natchitoches,  La. 

SECRETARY-TREASURER 

E.  A.  LINDSEY,  Esq.,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

CHAIRMAN  OF  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 

JUDGE  J.  C.  BRADFORD,  Nashville,  Tenn 


Dr.  B.  J.  Baldwin,  Montgomery,  Ala. 

Prof.  Hugh  S.  Bird,  Fredericksburg,  Va. 

W.  A.  Blair,  Esq.,  Winston-Salem,  N.  C. 

Stuart  H.  Bowman,  Esq.,  Huntington,  W.  Va. 

James  E.  Caldwell,  Esq.,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

Hon.  J.  M.  Dickinson,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

Thomas  B.  Franklin,  Esq.,  Columbus,  Miss. 

Joseph  K.  Orr,  Esq.,  Atlanta,  Ga. 

A.  H.  Robinson,  Esq.,  Nashville,  Tenn. 

Bolton  Smith,  Esq.,  Memphis,  Tenn. 

Prof.  W.  K.  Tate,  Columbia,  S.  C. 

Gov.  Ben  W.  Hooper,  Ex-Officio,  Nashville,  Tenn. 


"Education,  a  debt  due  from  present  to  future 
generations." — George  Peabody. 


The  Function  of 
George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers 


The  Trustees  of  the  Peabody  Education  Fund,  who  have  been 
for  almost  half  a  century  the  earnest  students  and  supporters  of 
every  phase  of  education  in  the  South  and  who  in  establishing 
George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers  are  concretely  perpetuat- 
ing the  noble  spirit  of  George  Peabody's  philanthropy,  have  de- 
clared that  the  purpose  of  the  College  is  "To  serve  as  an  educa- 
i  P  II         s  tional  crown  of  the  systems  of  schools  which 

-  w  u  t?a  the  Southern  States  have  established  and  are 
nig  e  u-  maintaining.  It  is  to  be  a  college  for  the 
ucation  of  higher  education  of  teachers  for  all  the  South. 

1  eacners  tor  Articulating  at  every  point  with  the  state  sys- 

All  the  oOUth  terns  of  schools  and  colleges  and  supplement- 
ing them  in  a  field  all  its  own,  its  mission  will  be  to  send  out  into 
all  these  states  men  of  trained  ability  to  build  up  and  administer 
state  stystems  of  education.     .     .     . 

"All  experts  on  the  subject  know  that  such  a  college  for  the 
training  of  teachers  is  the  greatest  and  crying  need  of  the  South 
today." 

The  above  statement  will  be  heartily  assented  to  by  practically 
every  educator  in  the  South  and  every  student  of  Southern  school 
progress.  The  most  urgent  educational  need  of  the  South  at 
present  is  trained  leadership,  which  it  is  the  peculiar  function  of 
this  institution  to  develop.  Peabody  College  must  lay  special  em- 
phasis on  this  feature  of  its  work  and  must  unite  most  heartily 
with  all  the  other  teacher-training  agencies  in  the  South  intended 
to  develop  educational  leaders.  At  no  period  in  our  history  have 
we  needed  intellectual  power  as  we  do  at  this  time  of  industrial, 
social,  and  educational  transformation  and  regeneration. 


6  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers: 

In  the  language  of  one  of  the  most  prominent  educators  of 
Th  T  '  *  «  i  ^le  South,  "Big  men  must  go  into  big  school- 
1  ne  1  raining  ot  houses>  else  the  educational  revival  of  the 
bducational  South  will  amount  t0  but  little»     peabody 

Leaders  College  will  join  most  earnestly  in  the  effort 

to  increase  the  number  of  these  big  men,  believing  that  in  this 
way  its  greatest  contribution  can  be  made  to  every  phase  of  South- 
ern development.  Among  all  the  forces  at  work  for  human  civili- 
zation the  schools  must  be  given  a  very  high  place ;  and  in  this 
effort  a  college,  the  specific  purpose  of  which  is  to  discover  and 
develop  with  all  its  energies  the  future  leaders  of  education,  can 
not  fail  to  be  a  most  important  factor. 

In  the  present  reorganization  of  our  whole  social  order,  we 
must  have  highly  trained  experts,  able  to  grasp  the  advanced  edu- 
cational thought  of  the  rest  of  the  world  and  translate  it  into  the 
serviceable  working  terms  of  our  own  needs  at  home.  The  South 
is  calling  for  more  leaders  who  embody  the  vitalizing  forces  of  a 
larger  life  and  whose  outlook  transcends  the  limits  of  the  state 
in  which  they  live.  This  breadth  of  view,  this  catholicity  of 
spirit,  which  is  the  life-giving  element  in  any  education  for  citi- 
zenship, is  especially  significant  and  powerful  in  the  training  of 
educational  statesmen;  for  they  must  form  the  habit  of  dealing 
with  great  forces,  working  over  broad  areas  and  through  long 
periods  of  time. 

In  brief,  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers  intends  to  do 
for  the  South  what  Teachers  College  in  New  York  City  and  the 
School  of  Education  at  the  University  of  Chicago  have  done  for 
those  sections ;  what  the  Medical  College  of  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity, of  Harvard  University,  and  the  other  medical  colleges 
have  done  for  the  profession  of  medicine;  what  the  School  of 
Agriculture  at  Cornell  University,  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin, 
and  the  other  agricultural  colleges  have  done  for  leadership  in 
farm  life.  It  proposes  to  shape  educational  thought  and  practice 
in  men  of  large  directive  capacity,  and  to  train  experts  in  all 
phases  of  education,  who  will,  in  turn,  transmit  this  training  to 
other  leaders.    It  will  increase  the  number,  information,  and  skill 

of  those  leaders  within  each  state,  who  always 
Leaders  Dear  the  burdens  of  educational  progress.     In 

view  of  this  obligation  it  purposes  to  sur- 
round itself  with  a  faculty  fitted  for  leadership.  The  young  men 
and  young  women  who  are  to  become  the  future  leaders  of  the 
South  must  come  into  contact  with  men  who  possess  the  enkind- 
ling spirit  of  leadership. 


Its  Function.  7 

The  mission  of  Peabody  College,  through  cooperation  with 
other  teacher-training  agencies,  will  be  to  extend  and  intensify 
the  instrumentalities  of  service  in  the  field  of  teaching.  It  will 
supplement  all  the  activities  at  work  for  the  betterment  of  South- 
ern education  in  this  field,  not  duplicating  any  of  the  indispensable 
agencies  now  in  operation. 

Peabody  College  will  best  fulfill  its  mission  by  laying  particu- 
lar stress  upon  certain  lines  of  effort.  It  proposes  to  make  a 
definite  attack  on  those  urgent  needs  which  have  brought  its 
present  policy  into  existence  and  which  are  so  generally  recog- 
nized. The  following  statement  of  the  function  of  George  Pea- 
body College  for  Teachers  has  been  formulated  with  direct  ref- 
erence to  these  needs  of  Southern  education. 

There  is  no  demand  in  the  South  more  difficult  to  supply  than 

that  of  trained  teachers,  supervisors,  and  administrators  for  nor- 

T    T    o  mal  schools.     The  agencies  for  the  prepara- 

'  tion  of  these  much  needed  officials  are  so  few 

Normal  Schools      and  so  far  removed  from  thjs  section  that  it 

is  almost  vain  to  attempt  to  procure  them.  In  training  these 
teachers  and  administrators,  Peabody  College  will  help  to  define 
the  aims  and  determine  the  spirit  and  methods  of  these  institu- 
tions. It  will,  in  other  words,  teach  the  teachers  who  teach  the 
teachers  of  the  South,  and  no  other  form  of  education  will  multi- 
ply itself  so  rapidly  as  this. 

A  very  definite  demand  comes  to  Peabody  College  from  many 
newly  organized  Departments  of  Education  in  Colleges  and  Uni- 

H~     .  versities.      These    higher    institutions    must 

l-'I'Qtpccoyc 

'  .  bear  an  increasingly  important  relation  to  the 

Of  Education  for  secondary  school  systems  of  their  states.  They 
Colleges  ana  are^  therefore,  in  need  of  professors  with  ex- 

Universities  tended    training    in    their    chosen    specialties. 

The  teacher,  to  be  vital,  must  beyond  question  possess  a  broader, 
richer  training  than  that  given  by  the  school  in  which  he  teaches. 

Peabody  College  will   further  round  out  and  give  symmetry 

TTT     \A  A  t0  tne  wor^  °f  tne  normal  school  by  supply- 

r  '  ing  more  advanced  training  to  those  of  its 

Courses  for  graduates  desiring  it. 

INormai  bcnool  An  unanswerable  argument  for  a  Teachers 

Graduates  College  in  the  South  is  the  fact,  well  known 

by  every  normal  school  president,  that  an  increasingly  large  pro- 
portion of  the  graduates  of  the  normal  schools  each  year  desire 
something  higher,  but  there  is  now  no  place  in  the  South  to  which 


8  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers: 

they  may  be  directed.  Peabody  College  will,  therefore,  tempt 
to  larger  fields  of  usefulness  those  who  have  hitherto  been  con- 
fined to  smaller  areas  of  service. 

Selecting  the  most  promising  youth  from  all  the  normal  schools 
of  the  South,  Peabody  College  will  endeavor  to  change  and  ex- 
pand the  range  of  their  activities,  so  that  when  they  pass  out  of 
the  College  to  become  normal  school  administrators  and  teachers, 
they  will  uplift  not  only  the  students  whom  they  teach,  but  also 
the  entire  commonwealth  which  they  serve. 

A  graduate  school  of  education,  comprehensively  planned  and 
fully  equipped,  does  not  exist  in  the  South  today.  Peabody  Col- 
TV  A  Cradnatp  ^e£e  ^nten<^s  t0  suPply  such  a  graduate  school, 
o  I      t  e     n  It  will  extend  the  work  of  the  departments  of 

education  in  colleges  and  universities  and  will 
partments  01  enhance  the  opportunities  for  more  prolonged 

Education  and  ancj  intensive  study  by  such  of  their  graduates 
for  Colleges  as  desire  wider  preparation.     The  graduates 

of  these  departments  are  imbued  with  the  idea  of  rendering  the 
largest  possible  service  to  their  generation  and  their  section.  They, 
therefore,  willingly  submit  to  long  periods  of  preparation  and  the 
most  careful  study  of  the  best  means  of  discharging  efficiently 
their  full  educational  and  social  obligation. 

And  the  graduates  of  Southern  academic  institutions,  which 
have  their  curricula  cast  in  the  cultural  and  classical  form  and 
do  not  offer  specific  courses  for  the  training  of  teachers,  are  like- 
wise permeated  with  more  or  less  idealism  for  social  service. 
They  willingly  enter  upon  the  teaching  career,  but  too  readily 
become  discouraged  and  abandon  it  for  other  professions,  be- 
cause they  find  in  it  only  the  monotony  of  a  vocation  leading  no- 
where and  learn  to  rate  it  as  far  below  the  standard  of  a  real 
profession.  Lacking  within  themselves  the  training  and  skilled 
insight  for  constructive  educational  leadership,  they  miss  the 
thrill  of  enthusiasm  which  comes  from  progressive  endeavor. 
Peabody  College  will  offer  to  such  promising  young  men  and 
young  women  the  opportunity  of  a  higher  plane  of  work,  and  to 
the  active,  restless  imagination  an  appeal  to  greater  constructive- 
ness,  thereby  adding  to  the  profession  many  of  these  coveted  in- 
dividuals of  rare  talent  and  creative  ability. 

There  is  no  present-day  problem  which  is  more  insistently 
projecting  itself  into  the  social  consciousness  and  conscience  than 
that  of  the  rehabilitation  of  country  life.    Perhaps  eighty-five  per 


Its  Function.  9 

cent  of  the  citizenship  of  the  South,  and  far  more  than  that  of 
its  strength  and  backbone,  have  in  the  past  resided  in  the  country 
V  The  Improve-  anc*  w*^  continue  to  do  so.  Rural  life  must 
ment  of  Rural  oe  made  more  economically  profitable  if  men 
Life  and  the  are  to  remain  in  the  country.    The  cities  will 

Rural  School  continue  to  rob  the  country  of  the  cream  of 

its  population,  if  rural  life  is  not  made  more  humanly  interesting, 
more  richly  enjoyable.  The  rural  school  is  the  most  potent  agen- 
cy through  which  these  ideas  are  to  be  realized  and  country  life 
made  more  profitable  and  interesting. 

Peabody  College  proposes  to  establish  strong  departments  of 
rural  education,  rural  life  economy  in  all  its  phases,  agriculture, 
domestic  science  and  domestic  art,  applied  art  and  design,  home 
decoration  and  home  gardening,  and  manual  training.  The 
ground  plans  call  for  an  agricultural  building,  with  a  large  ex- 
periment field,  a  manual  training  building,  a  domestic  economy 
building,  an  applied  arts  building,  and  a  fine  arts  building,  be- 
sides buildings  for  the  teaching  of  those  sciences  closely  related 
to  the  foregoing. 

We  have  scarcely  begun  the  search  for  the  school  best  suited 
to  country  communities.  Our  entire  educational  scheme  needs 
revamping  in  order  to  contribute  most  directly  to  this  school. 
It  is  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  a  young  man,  wishing  to 
prepare  himself  for  the  office  of  county  superintendent,  can  find 
technical  training  for  rural  school  supervision.  A  Teachers  Col- 
lege centrally  located  in  this  great  rural  section  should  devote  its 
best  energies  to  the  study  and  enrichment  of  country  life  through 
country  schools. 

These  activities  will  be  organized  by  Peabody  College  into  a 
distinct  group  of  courses,  with  special  professors  and  students, 
and  with  a  distinctive  title,  "The  Seaman  A.  Knapp  School  of 
Country  Life."  This  will  insure  an  intensiveness  of  investigation 
from  which  will  result  some  solutions  for  the  insistent  demands 
of  country  life.  Besides  the  courses  offered  on  the  campus  in 
the  Knapp  Memorial  Building  for  the  study  of  agriculture  and 
rural  conditions,  it  is  intended  to  have  a  farm  in  some  typical 
rural  section  within  ten  or  twelve  miles  of  Nashville.  Here  will 
be  exemplified  the  best  practical  forms  of  effort,  both  for  leading 
backward  communities  into  better  ways  and  for  proving  to  pros- 
perous communities  new  roads  to  still  greater  prosperity.  In  this 
environment  of  model  barns,  fences,  implements,  and  of  high- 
bred farm  animals  and  farm  plants,  will  be  developed  a  model 


10  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers: 

rural  school  as  a  community  center.  This  farm  will  work  out  its 
results  with  reference  to  varying  Southern  conditions  and  will 
become  a  suitable  rallying  point  for  demonstrations  and  confer- 
ences of  rural  workers.  Thus  through  the  country  will  the  entire 
South  be  assisted  in  its  economic  and  social  betterment. 

In  offering  specific  courses  in  industrial  education,  Peabody 
College  will  have  a  field  all  its  own.  Although  the  South  is  pre- 
eminently an  industrial  section,  and  although  much  has  been  writ- 
ten recently  about  industrial  training,  yet  this  most  important 
group  of  subjects  has  not  actually  found  its  way  into  the  schools 
of  the  people,  except  through  sporadic  attempts.  The  greatest 
VT    I  H     t  '  1  difficulty  is  encountered  in  ordering  the  sub- 

VI.  industrial  ject-matter  to  the  understanding  of  the  child 

and  in  procuring  teachers  for  the  few  schools 
which  are  ready  to  introduce  these  subjects.  Within  the  territory 
to  be  served  there  is  not  a  single  higher  institution  of  learning 
which  offers  the  requisite  training  for  specialists  in  teaching  in- 
dustrial arts,  or  which  is  seriously  undertaking  a  study  of  the 
kind  of  industrial  education  most  needed  in  the  South. 

Since  reforms  begin  at  the  top  and  filter  down,  that  study  which 
most  directly  fits  the  young  citizen  for  his  environment  will  never 
find  its  proper  place  in  the  curriculum  of  the  common  school, 
until  such  an  institution  as  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers 
dignifies  and  emphasizes  industrial  education  and  supplies  the 
demands  of  normal  schools,  high  schools,  city  and  county  school 
systems  for  efficient  instructors  in  that  subject. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  the  conservation  of  human  life  and 
energy  is  the  foundation  of  the  economic,  in- 

VII.  Health  tellectual,  and  social  power  and  progress  of 
any  people.  Hopeless  life-failures  are  usually  body-failures  first. 
In  the  vigorous  and  far-reaching  public-health  movement  now 
going  on,  the  strategic  point  of  attack  is  in  the  children  of  each 
generation.  Prophylaxis  is  the  accepted  and  most  economic  mode 
of  attack,  but  leadership  in  this  vital  undertaking  requires  spe- 
cially trained  supervisors  and  experts  to  spread  information  and 
institute  reform.  Opportunity  will  be  offered  through  the  de- 
partment of  physical  education  for  prolonged  study  in  sanitation 
and  health,  physical  training,  medical  inspection  of  school  chil- 
dren, organized  games,  etc.,  which  will  look  to  the  creation  of  a 
new  type  of  educational  leadership. 


Its  Function.  11 

Peabody  College  will  put  special  emphasis  upon  systematic 
training  for  social  and  religious  service.  Upon  the  crowning 
point  of  the  campus  will  be  situated  its  noblest  edifice,  the  Social- 
Religious  Building.  Standing  at  the  head  of 
Vlll.  oOCiai  ana  tjie  acacjemic  quadrangle  and  in  the  center  of 
Keligious  |-ne  dormitory  section,  it  will  indicate  at  once 

Service  by  its  position  and  character  the  supremacy 

of  religious  experience  and  the  unification  of  the  entire  life  with- 
in the  institution  in  social  service.  Systematic  training  in  relig- 
ious education  and  definite  preparation  for  social  participation 
will  be  provided.  Both  by  actual  instruction  and  by  cooperation 
in  community  affairs  the  students  of  the  College  should  increase 
not  only  their  purpose  but  also  their  ability  to  serve.  Thus  the 
College  hopes  to  assist  in  perfecting  the  connection  between  edu- 
cation and  human  affairs,  religion  and  life,  moral  ideals  and  social 
practice,  so  that  those  who  go  out  to  administer  the  schools  may 
be  fitted  to  equip  them  with  religious  and  moral  efficiency  as  well 
as  with  intellectual  and  motor  skill. 

Such  an  institution  zvill  constitute  an  educational  clearing  house 
for  the  Southern  States.  Into  this  center  will  pour  educational 
data  of  all  kinds  and  from  all  quarters,  here  to  be  stored,  digested, 
TY    EM       f        1      formulated,    and   put   again   into   circulation. 

'     .  It  will  become  the  headquarters  for  the  most 

Clearing  House  trustworthy  information  upon  all  Southern 
educational  conditions.  Through  its  graduates,  its  faculty,  its 
departmental  bureaus,  and  its  research  publications,  the  data  thus 
gathered  and  organized  will  return  to  the  people  in  the  form  of 
enlightened  opinion  and  wise  counsel  to  direct  educational  ac- 
tivity over  this  whole  territory.  It  will  be  the  chief  center  of  all 
sound  educational  reform  throughout  the  whole  system  of  educa- 
tion in  the  Southern  States.  It  will  take  care  to  assist  and  make 
its  contribution  to  the  efficiency  of  all  agencies  working  in  the 
South.  The  many  good  things  happening  in  the  South  might 
also  be  profitable — very  profitable — to  educators  in  other  sections 
of  our  common  country. 

Peabody  College  will  attract  a  high  order  of  talent  to  the  pro- 
fession of  teaching.  In  the  industrial  awakening  now  occurring 
Y    R         .  .  the  teaching  profession  is  likely  to  suffer  dis- 

'  ■»  astrously   from  the  desertion  of  rare  genius 

lalent  for  the  to  the  other  professions.  But,  with  the  estab- 
rTOtession  lishment  of  an  institution  inviting  young  men 

and  young  women  to  more  prolonged  and  intense  study  in  spe- 


12  George  Peacody  College  for  Teachers: 

cial  fields,  thus  offering  opportunities  for  a  more  efficient  career 
than  could  otherwise  be  attained  by  the  unskilled,  the  profession 
may  hope  to  select  the  best  and  most  promising  spirits,  those 
showing  decided  aptitude  for  educational  leadership.  In  offering 
a  greater  variety  of  courses  of  instruction,  it  will  stimulate  the 
more  diverse  talents  of  youth,  act  as  a  sort  of  magnetic  tower  to 
genius,  and  prove  an  incentive  to  those  brighter  minds  which  are 
inspired  only  by  the  rarer  reaches  of  endeavor.  It  will  thus  be- 
come a  source  of  inspiration  and  will  create  objects  of  hope  bright 
enough  to  tempt  the  finest  powers  into  the  profession. 

One  of  the  most  significant  enterprises  to  be  affected  by  this 
institution  is  the  high  school  movement.  Professors  of  secondary 
Yi    tk    w  u  education    connected    with    state    universities, 

c  L     IM  anc*    *"gh    school    inspectors    connected    with 

ocnool  Move-  state  departments  of  education,  have  accom- 

ment  plished  during  the  past  six  years  thrilling  re- 

sults in  persuading  legislators  and  local  authorities  to  establish 
systems  of  state,  county,  and  township  high  schools.  Money  for 
buildings,  equipment,  and  faculty  has  not  been  withheld,  but  this 
is  still  inadequate  to  the  needs  of  the  South.  Moreover,  adequate 
ideals,  sane  principles,  records  of  successful  practice,  and  results 
of  scientific  investigation  are  also  needed  to  prevent  incorporating 
in  the  very  foundations  of  these  schools  serious  mistakes  requir- 
ing years  for  correction. 

No  class  of  educational  promoters  in  modern  times  has  turned 
to  the  usual  sources  of  guidance  and  inspiration  with  more  empty 
and  more  hopeless  results  than  have  these  professors  of  secondary 
education  and  their  colaborers,  who  were  pioneers  in  furthering 
the  establishment  of  "the  people's  college."  In  answer  to  the 
foregoing  urgent  demand,  Peabody  College  will  offer  courses  in 
secondary  education  for  prospective  high  school  principals  and 
supervisors,  and  will  train  professors  of  secondary  education  and 
high  school  inspectors. 

A  much  needed  service  in  the  South  is  the  organization  and 
direction  of  all  the  forces  at  work  in  the  field  of  elementary  edu- 
cation. The  South  will  soon  be  able  to  finance  an  adequate  sys- 
tern  of  public  schools,  for  which  the  high 
All.  rLiemen-  school  and  normal  school  will  prepare  local 

tary  bcnool  teachers.     But  the  supervision  of  these  teach- 

SuperviSion  ers  anc[  the  proper  expenditure  of  these  ac- 

cumulating funds  will  require  more  highly  trained  leaders  than 
the  high  school  and  normal  school  can  supply. 


Its  Function.  13 

Fifty  per  cent  of  the  taxes  in  the  South  goes  to  schools,  and 
eighty  per  cent  of  this  fifty  per  cent  is  expended  by  the  county 
superintendent.  Through  his  hands  the  largest  portion  of  such 
funds  reaches  the  elementary  schools,  and  it  should  be  wisely 
disbursed.  A  trained  superintendent  demands  that  all  of  his 
time  be  purchased  for  supervision.  An  untrained  superintend- 
ent, on  the  contrary,  is  satisfied  to  divide  his  energies  between  the 
schools  and  other  more  lucrative  employment,  to  the  detriment 
of  the  schools. 

It  is  plain  that  we  shall  never  have  the  most  efficient  system  of 
elementary  schools,  until  we  can  guarantee  to  them  that  sort  of 
expert  supervision  which  will  systematize  and  unify  all  the  activi- 
ties of  teaching;  this,  too,  notwithstanding  the  training  which 
the  normal  schools  may  supply  to  the  individual  teachers  within 
the  public  schools. 

A  Teachers  College  must  provide  itself  zvith  such  a  faculty  and 
give  them  such  equipment  and  leisure  from  the  drudgery  of  ex- 
XIII  Educational  cesswe  teaching  that  they  may  become  edu- 
Surveyors  and  cational  surveyors.  If  it  is  a  good  thing  to 
Investigators  make  geological  surveys  and  coast  surveys; 

(a)  Surveys  of  Childhood  if  it  is  a  good  thing  to  make  surveys  of  our 
soil,  of  plant  life  and  animal  life,  it  is  a  far  better  thing  to  survey 
the  needs  of  childhood  and  to  diagnose  the  human  and  psychical 
needs  of  our  people.  We  are  learning  how  to  raise  better  hogs 
and  better  corn;  are  not  our  children  of  much  more  value  than 
many  swine? 

The  great  manufacturers  employ  the  rarest  inventive  skill  to 
devise  improvements  in  their  products.    In  like  manner  will  Pea- 
body  College  gather  to  itself  those  who  are 

(b)  The  Training  equipped  to  advance  thought,  to  discover  and 
investigators                    transmit  better  ways  of  doing  things  in  edu- 
cation,  to   analyze   educational    systems   into 

their  elements  and  submit  improved  methods  of  treatment. 

Under  the  present  conditions,  research  and  investigation  are 
well  nigh  impossible  in  normal  schools  and  departments  of  edu- 
cation attached  to  colleges.  In  these  institutions  the  members 
of  the  faculty  are  not  usually  allowed  sufficient  leisure  from  their 
class  teaching  for  the  pursuit  of  original  studies  which  tend  to 
advance  the  borderland  of  the  science.  They  are,  therefore,  right- 
ly but  transmitters  of  the  science  as  handed  down  to  them.  George 
Peabody  College  for  Teachers  assumes  as  one  of  its  functions 
this  creative  study,  this  discovery-method.    Blessed  with  freedom 


14  George  Peabody  College  for  Teachers: 

from  political,  ecclesiastical,  and  local  opinion,  it  may  undertake 
those  experiments  in  the  field  of  education  by  which,  and  by 
which  only,  permanent  progress  is  made  possible. 

The  South  furnishes  the  environment  in  which  its  average  stu- 
dent is  likely  to  do  his  work.  If  education  is  to  adapt  the  pros- 
pective citizen  to  his  environment,  then  by  all  means  it  should 

make  a  careful  analysis  of  that  environment, 
(c)  Training  in  the  The  social   structure  of  the   South  must  be 

o "the  Work  studied  before  proper  direction  can  be  given 

to  instruction  in  any  subject.  All  educational 
data  need  to  be  worked  over  in  terms  of  social  and  economic  needs 
of  our  section.  A  great  unordered  mass  of  material  awaits  the 
critical  study  of  scientifically  trained  experts,  a  task  which  could 
be  undertaken  by  specialists  in  the  faculty  and  among  the  grad- 
uates. The  study  of  economy  in  the  administration  of  school 
funds,  of  improved  methods  in  the  management  of  schools,  and 
of  waste  engendered  by  the  duplication  and  overcrowding  of  the 
instrumentalities  of  education,  offers  a  hitherto  neglected  field  of 
unusual  importance  to  the  South. 

It  is  very  apparent,  therefore,  how  vastly  important  it  is  to 
train  teachers  for  this  work  in  the  environment  with  which  they 
are  to  deal.  In  order  to  meet  with  any  degree  of  success,  it  is 
tremendously  necessary  to  understand  all  the  local  conditions 
and  aspects  of  the  territory  in  which  these  leaders  must  labor. 
Even  a  definite  understanding  of  different  conditions  will  not 
serve  fully  for  work  in  the  South,  which  is  an  unusually  cohe- 
rent territory  as  regards  topography,  racial  characteristics,  tra- 
ditions, and  ideals.  A  thorough  understanding  of  all  these  at 
first  hand  is  the  prime  essential  to  further  progress.  If  the  South 
is  to  make  her  proper  contribution  to  national  life,  it  must  be 
done  by  taking  proper  stock  of  her  capacities  and  working  out- 
ward from  the  center  of  her  historic  life. 

Perhaps  the  most  far-reaching  service  which  can  be  rendered 
by  the  College  will  be  in  the  field  of  training  experts  in  school 
administration,  in  the  scientific  handling  of  school  budgets.  It 
is  well  known  how  wasteful  have  been  our  expenditures  of  school 
YIV    PH  money    and    how  much    needed  is  a    set  of 

*  "  trained  men  who  can  administer  school  finan- 

tional  fcxonomy  ces  an(j  ^ve  wjse  direction  to  school  legisla- 
tion. Trained  experts  who  can  eliminate  the  financial  waste  so 
prevalent  in  our  present  administration  of  schools  will  prove  a 


Its  Function.  15 

blessing  far  above  almost  any  other  contribution  that  might  be 
made.  We  need  to  introduce  a  better  system  of  educational  book- 
keeping. 

From  no  other  vantage  point  can  the  educational  campaigns  of 

the  future  be  conducted  with  such  effectiveness  and  with  such 

YV  t  ii'  f  vigor.  The  educational  campaign  of  the  fu- 
XV.    intelligent     ture  win  be  different  from  that  of  the  past> 

iL,aucationai  though  campaigning  will  have  to  continue  un- 

Lampaigns  remittingly,  since  public  sentiment  will  need 

revising  with  each  new  generation.  The  day  when  the  educator 
can  be  no  more  than  a  campaigner,  however,  has  passed  in  the 
South.  He  must  know  how  to  teach,  how  to  organize,  how  to 
direct,  how  to  administer,  how  to  inspire. 

The  educational  booster  has  served  his  day.  He  must  now 
have  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  best  in  the  profession,  and  must 
speak  more  accurately  and  concretely  concerning  the  very  definite 
problems  presenting  themselves  for  solution. 

Peabody  College,  through  its  faculty  and  graduates,  purposes 
to  conduct  a  perpetual  campaign  of  popular  education,  directed 
by  the  most  intelligent  and  consecrated  leadership. 

The  ethnic  unity  of  the  South,  as  well  as  the  similarity  of  its 
traditions,  ideals,  and  educational  conditions,  emphasizes  the  need 
of  one  really  adequate  institution  of  learning  on  its  own  soil.     It 

YVT    Th    IT  *fi       *s  °^  ^e  utmost  importance  that  the  South 

"      should    possess    one    great    teacher-training 

cation  of  Tested     school?  and  that  it  shouM  be  free  and  unham_ 

rnnciples  and  pered  in  its  search  for  truth.  George  Pea- 
rractice  body  College  for  Teachers,  perceiving  these 

vital  advantages,  proposes  to  incarnate  them  and  transmit  their 
life-giving  force  through  its  graduates  to  the  whole  South. 

Here  educational  administration  may  be  made  uniform  with 
regard  to  those  successful  experiences  that  have  borne  the  test 
in  other  states  with  similar  conditions.  Here  moral  and  religious 
training,  always  acceptable  to  the  South,  may  be  developed  with- 
out the  fear  of  dogmatic  control.  Here  new  paths  of  investiga- 
tion may  be  blazed  without  fear  of  political  interference.  Here, 
too,  democratic  education  may  find  its  fullest  realization,  among 
the  most  homogeneous  native  population  on  this  continent,  un- 
fettered by  the  alien  influence  of  imported  innovations. 


WILLIAMS   PRINTING   COMPANY.    NASHVILLI 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 


3  0112  111958879 


